business of importance entrusted to them. It had happened in his
case as in a thousand others, which every one's experience must have
furnished. His neighbors had discovered that his rude and surly
manners concealed a powerful intellect and an excellent heart--and
even this rudeness had grown interesting from the cynical dry humor
not unfrequently mingled with it.

A huge table, littered with old dingy volumes, and with dusty rolls
of papers tied with red tape--a tall desk, with a faded and
ink-bespattered covering of brown cloth--a lofty set of "pigeon
holes," nearly filled with documents of every description--and a set
of chairs and stools in every state of dilapidation:--there was the
ante-room of Joseph Rushton, Esq., Attorney-at-Law and Solicitor in
Chancery.

No window panes ever had been seen so dirty as those which graced the
windows--no rag-carpet so nearly resolved into its component elements,
had ever decorated human dwelling--and perhaps no legal den, from
the commencement of the world to that time, had ever diffused so
unmistakeable an odor of parchment, law-calf, and ancient dust!

The apartment within the first was much smaller, and here Mr. Rushton
held his more confidential interviews. Few persons entered it,
however; and even Roundjacket would tap at the door before entering,
and generally content himself with thrusting his head through the
opening, and then retiring. Such was the lawyer's office.